Paperback. Pub Date :2001-04-05 Pages: 416 Language: English Publisher: Penguin Books The Gift is the phantasmal autobiography of Fyodor Godunov-Cherdynstev. a writer living in the closed world of Russian intellectuals in Berlin shortly after the First World War . This gorgeous tapestry of literature and butterflies tells the story of Fyodors pursuits as a writer. Its heroine is not Fyodors elusive and beloved Zina. however. but Russian prose and poetry themselves.